Last week, I wrote about the all-too-predictable onslaught of nasty comments from people with nothing better to do than to snipe at Bristol Palin. While that has continued this week in many places (including Ms. Palin's brand-new Facebook page), there has been a very nice outpouring of support for Ms. Palin and her Dancing With the Stars partner, Mark Ballas.
(Picture courtesy Team Ballin' page at ABC.com, used under "Fair Use" doctrine)
In the past week, Ms. Palin's Facebook page has garnered almost 4000 fans with little fanfare since its creation last Tuesday. Sure, a lot of that has to do with many people's support of Sarah Palin, but Bristol has earned that support with her character and her actions. She has had to deal with situations including the announcement of her pregnancy to the entire world as well as the continued idiotic rantings of people who believe that she is the mother of her little brother, Trig. (Yeah, I'm looking at you, Andrew Sullivan, and as far as I'm concerned, that is the only time I ever want to mention you in this blog.) She's also had to deal with a true publicity hound in the person of her ex, who has sold out her family more times than I can remember. And in all this, she has maintained a positive attitude in the face of trials.
And to me, that's what makes Bristol Palin worth my support. While some of the things that have happened in her life are of her own doing (and she has owned up to those), many things have been thrown at her unfairly just because of who she is and because of who her mother is, and through all that nastiness, she has handled herself with grace and poise (and also the occasional bout of nerves, as DWTS viewers saw in her first dance). She has stood up for what she believes in speaking out about pregnancy prevention and the value of life.
The mainstream media has not always been kind to Bristol offering much harsh and undue criticism of her decision to keep her baby while remaining a single parent. Not one to cower in the face of adversity, Bristol used the media spotlight to bring awareness to the consequences of teen pregnancy. She was appointed as a teen ambassador for the Candie's Foundation, an organization that works to shape the way American teens think about teen pregnancy and parenthood. In a May 2009 interview with "Good Morning America", Bristol explained that, "Regardless of what I did personally, I just think that abstinence is the only ... 100 percent foolproof way to prevent pregnancy."
Bristol Palin is using the events of her life, good, bad, or whatever, to advocate for good choices. And that is what makes her worth supporting, both in her Dancing With the Stars endeavor (that number, for those so inclined, is 1-800-868-3407), and in her public life.
As of this evening at about 7:00pm, KVUE and Time Warner Cable of Central Texas have come to terms, thus avoiding the worst-case scenario of KVUE disappearing at midnight tomorrow.
I am pleased to tell you that KVUE and Time Warner have reached a tentative agreement that will allow the cable company to continue to carry the station's broadcast signal in Central Texas.
This means that we do not anticipate a disruption in service for viewers who watch KVUE on the Time Warner Cable system.
I would like to thank our viewers for their patience during this process. We are grateful to those who called and/or wrote the station over the past few weeks. We received interesting and thoughtful comments, and appreciate that viewers would take the time to share them with us.
If you have questions, please feel free to contact us at the station by calling 512-459-6521or e-mailing cable@kvue.com.
Wow, some people hate Sarah Palin so much that they are taking their hatred out on Bristol, just for having the audacity to appear on Dancing With the Stars. Good grief, y'all, they asked her if she wanted to do it; it isn't as if she went begging for them to let her on the show. (No, the publicity hound most closely associated with this family is someone this blog no longer wants to mention. So I won't.) But because she is Sarah's daughter, the hate drips from them.
For example, film critic Richard Roeper brings the class with these two tweets:
Bristol Palin is dancing to "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)"??? Good God.
Guess there's not a song called, "Got Knocked Up by a Mope, Now What?"
Sigh. Let's move on.
And other non-celebrity types have added their two cents on Twitter as well, going so far as to wish Bristol a broken leg.
Yeah E...continue to make a superstar out of a teenage whore and her flaky, right-wing, nut-job of a mother. ABC is a horrible network. Attempting to put lipstick on Alaskan trailer trash pigs isn't going to change the fact they are still going to be Alaskan Trailer trash pigs. Caribou Barbie SUCKS!!! DEFEAT THE TEABAGGER LOONIES!!! Obama should enact a law require all white trash like this to sit in the back of the bus. Just a joke people. Lighten up and stop being so politicall [sic] correct. HA!
Due to this show's track record, expect Bristol to have her leg snap in half and/or be pregnant with her dancing partner's baby. I think Brick, Rock, or Cement would be an appropriate name for baby #2.
Ding Ding Ding!!! We have a winner for the Trashiest Family in America
Hopefully those that didn't vote for Palin in the election won't be voting for her hoebag daughter on DWTS. I'm hoping either her or the situation are the first to go. A double eliminiation [sic] would be priceless **
And yet somehow it's Sarah Palin who is seen as a hate-spreading idiot. I don't get it; do you?
In the meantime, if you do happen to support Bristol Palin's foray into dancing, Rachelle Friberg gives the info on how to do that:
VOTE FOR BRISTOL AND MARK- TEAM BALLIN!!! The number to call to vote for Team Ballin is 1-800-868-3407.
I've laid off Time Warner Cable for a couple of months, but somehow they manage to do something to tick people off enough that I feel a need to write. ("Time Warner" is still one of the most popular search terms leading to this blog, just behind "92.5 Austin" and "is Scarlett Johansson a slut". Yes, I'm serious.)
So, what's the latest with our friends over at Time Warner? Well, Time Warner has lots of things going on at the moment, none of them great.
For starters, Time Warner is, once again, in the midst of a staring contest with a local station about retransmission fees. This time, as you may have seen, given that it's the highest-rated channel in town, the station is KVUE. (You can see what has happened up to this point over at Austin360.) KVUE, of course, has a webpage up giving their side of the story, and Time Warner, of course, has updated their perpetual website, RollOverorGetTough.com, with the latest info giving their side. (I've spoken previously about the push-polling that Time Warner does to get people to tell them to "get tough" with these awful, awful channels wanting to be compensated for retransmission.)
The deadline for these negotiations is September 25, but I do not see Time Warner dropping KVUE. They didn't drop KTBC last year, possibly (my conjecture) because they knew they would face a lot of angry customers wanting to see a Dallas Cowboys team in the midst of a playoff run (and playing a whole lot better than they are this year, but I digress), and similarly, I doubt they'll want to upset a lot of people who will want to watch UT playing Oklahoma in a couple of weeks. Yes, they dropped KXAN two years ago, but KXAN wasn't showing any football games of local interest. And yes, I do think football is the main consideration for a lot of local viewers. As Time Warner has said before, most network shows can be streamed online at this point, but for people who want to watch their football games live and uninterrupted, they need these channels on their cable system.
After that, the other things going on at Time Warner seem rather boring, I suppose, but I'll cover them anyway. First of all, I reported two months ago that Time Warner was moving all the access channels to digital-only (and was slightly corrected in my interpretation), so that people like me who haven't shelled out several hundred dollars for a digital set (it's below the line right now) will no longer be able to see them without a converter box. Well, that is supposed to happen on October 1, but I hear that Time Warner will, for those customers who have only basic cable but can't live without their city council meetings (and I suppose there are some like that) can get one free converter box from Time Warner. The catch: you have to go to one of their locations and pick it up; if you have them come to install it, they'll charge you. Luckily, the converter boxes are not difficult to install. But I still don't want one.
And you may have noticed, if you are a Time Warner Cable customer, that in the past few evenings, especially last Friday and Saturday, that some channels had a nasty tendency to pixelate or go completely black. Jim McNabb expressed his annoyance with the situation and Time Warner's seeming lack of concern about it. But I noticed one strange thing about the problems I saw while I was watching KVUE Saturday night: while there were problems multiple times during the pre-game show, there were no problems at all during the Texas-Texas Tech game. The problems magically disappeared once the game started. I'm sure that's a coincidence.
Update: KVUE, as predicted here, will not be dropped. More information may be found here.
Listeners to 105.9 the River in Austin may notice a change in their favorite station starting today.
As conjectured in this space a few months ago, 105.9 KFMK was sold. Specifically, the station went to a company called Crista Broadcasting, a company known for operating several Christian radio stations in the Pacific Northwest. The sale is to receive final approval today, September 20, according to All Access.
(Link courtesy All Access)
So what does this mean for The River? Well, it means that the gradual trending toward adult contemporary music (with some Christian music intermingled) is going to come to an abrupt end. The format of KFMK, now dubbed "Spirit 105.9", will return to contemporary Christian.
SPIRIT 105.9 is here because of the overwhelming support for this format that we heard time and time again in our conversations with AUSTIN listeners. SPIRIT 105.9 is going to provide uplifting music and message to the great people of AUSTIN.
The new general manager of the station, Tim McCoy says that they "have done extensive research to ensure [they] are programming the type of local station that ‘Austinites’ have been asking for." Whether that will translate into ratings success is left to be seen.
We can report to you exclusively that Sarah Palin's 19-year-old daughter Bristol Palin has been cast on the 11th season of DWTS, set to premiere Sept. 20.
For those who care, and I occasionally do, the casting is set to be announced this coming Monday during some ABC show that I will never, ever watch, but this seems to be set.
Already the comments on the article are slamming Bristol Palin (along with, of course, a few shots at Sarah Palin for, from what I can tell, existing) for doing a reality show when everyone was badmouthing ex-fiancé Levi Johnston's forays in reality television (when he wasn't forming half of a creepy couple with noted Palin-hater Kathy Griffin or making really awkward passes at Sandra Bullock*).
But in my mind, these are two different things. Levi Johnston (and I know I'm violating my own previously stated hopes of never again having to write about him for at least the second time) sold out the Palin family for the hopes of fame and fortune. He has bad-mouthed Sarah Palin whenever possible in the hopes that liberal Hollywood would love him, and some did, I suppose. His celebrity was based entirely on antipathy toward someone else. And, given his current run for mayor of Wasilla, I suppose it still is, though at this point I'd just call it a shtick.
What Bristol Palin is doing is far different. She's not selling anyone out in taking this gig. It may be that this will allow her to spread the message of abstinence, about which she has been speaking for some time. But even if that doesn't happen, it's still a way to support the son she had with Mr. Johnston.
Oh, and I know some people are saying "she's not a celebrity!!!1!" Ask yourself this: who makes a better celebrity: a 19-year-old woman who has owned up to her behavior and is raising the child who came from this behavior, or, say, a 24-year-old woman who has spiraled out of control for years, culminating in a hearing in which she ought to have been charged with contempt of court? Me, I'll be happy to watch Bristol dancing.
And I hope she wins. You betcha.
*It should be noted that this blog is not above dropping names to get hits.
Apparently the Emily's List video about which I blogged earlier today got the attention of its target, one Sarah Palin. I think she was amused more than anything else by the ad. And wasn't that the point of the Ewoks: to be cute and amusing, and to worship C-3PO? The Ewoks certainly cared little about political statements. They were much more into the basics, such as defending their homeland (they might be 2nd Amendment fans--who knew?) and eating Luke and Han. But I digress.
No, Governor Palin, in the midst of a Facebook post celebrating the 90th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment (giving the right to vote to women, for those of you who haven't read the Constitution recently), had a little bit of advice for the Ewoks:
On this anniversary of women’s suffrage, let’s take a moment to be grateful for the diversity of the debate. Women don’t walk in lockstep with each other in politics, any more than men do. We should be proud of our ability to engage in a civil discussion and healthy debate. I know I am. Unfortunately, I’ve recently come under attack for speaking up for sisters who seek to serve in public office. The sad part is that the attack comes from other sisters who happen to be on the other side of an issue that has been of great importance to American women from the time of our feminist foremothers, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, down to today. I’m speaking of the issue of life. I feel compelled to offer some advice to our sisters who like to throw stones at those of us who respectfully disagree with them on this issue (and they sometimes refuse to even countenance the fact that some of us can call ourselves feminists and disagree with those who claim the mantle of “real feminists”). First, ladies, it’s hard to take a critic seriously when they lecture you wearing a bear suit. So, it’s difficult for me to drum up much outrage at this latest ad. But, really, lying about a sister while wearing an Ewok outfit is no way to honor our foremothers on the eve of the 90th anniversary of their victory. But, that aside, I’d love to know where you got those get-ups. Halloween is just around the corner, and Piper and Trig would look adorable as little grizzly bears.
Governor, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for either a good-natured reply or a shopping tip. But in offering a dialogue where the other side has offered none, you have shown yourself to be on the classy side of this debate.
By now, those who follow Sarah Palin in the news have heard about the current Emily's List campaign specifically against the former governor, but for the benefit of those who haven't, or those who don't know what Emily's List is (and I envy those folks), I'll give a quick summary:
Sarah Palin, you may have heard, issued a video praising what she calls "Mama Grizzlies":
Seems pretty innocuous, doesn't it?
Well, Emily's List, which is a political action committee dedicated to raising money for, and electing, pro-choice women to public office, apparently decided that it did not like Sarah Palin or her politics or her Mama Grizzlies video. (Some have speculated* that Sarah Palin is disliked partially because she did not exercise her own right to choose in the way people like Emily's List would have liked because she chose to carry Trig to term and give birth to him despite his Down Syndrome.)
And so, they came up with what has to be one of the worst political ads I've seen in a long time. Watch, and laugh:
Wow. I know you're just in awe from seeing a bunch (I counted four total during the one and only time I will ever watch this video...they couldn't find more people willing to put on that ridiculous costume?) of women dressed, as Tammy Bruce correctly puts it, like Ewoks. Boy, if that doesn't put Sarah Palin in her place (and where is that, anyway? Why is it that the libs are the ones saying Sarah Palin should be at home taking care of her kids? Which, it's my understanding, she does anyway, on top of everything else she does, which, thankfully, doesn't include making videos of people wearing dorky outfits.), I don't know what will.
And, since I'm late to this party, I missed making this point as well: Ace of Spades has already pointed out that these people, in addition to looking nothing like Mama Grizzlies, do, unfortunately, look like Furries. (If you don't know what that means, be grateful.)
And, lest one think that all I am doing with this video is making fun of it (though I certainly am doing that), there are a couple of salient points worth making about what is being said in the ad. Unfortunately, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air made them before I could. For example, Mr. Morrissey points out:
Palin and her “Mama Grizzlies” don’t hold the ridiculous positions that these masquerading moms claim, as anyone with an ounce of sense and the ability to read can quickly determine for themselves. Republicans wanted to pay for an extension of unemployment benefits through previously allocated funds rather than incur more debt on grizzly cubs, or the cubs of the cubs and then their cubs as well, as Democrats ended up demanding.
As far as eliminating “health care,” as Emily’s List’s fuzzy logic claims, one would have to believe that “health care” was nonexistent in the US before Barack Obama took office.
You know, I thought it was Sarah Palin who was supposed to be the ignorant person whom no one was to take seriously. And yet, the narrative (and yes, the costumes) of this video shows me that, for the moment, Emily's List is not worth taking seriously. At all.
*Yeah, I know this exact language always gets flagged in Wikipedia with "(who?)", but I truly don't care in this case.
Funny, I thought by now everyone understood what the Tea Party stood for, and what policies it supports. But recent events have convinced me that this is not the case.
I cross-post many of my articles at the Austin Post (such as this one, which I totally expect to be rated about (-3) within 24 hours of its approval...this is Austin, after all), and that site has featured, in the last couple of months, multiple articles about the Tea Party. But as I have not written for the site lately, I thought it might be good to have an article at the Austin Post about the Tea Party by someone who actually knows what he is talking about.
For example, a recent article on the Post's site made the following assertion in its very first paragraph:
The NAACP made a good stab at defining the values of the Tea Party by calling them racists. It’s a simplistic judgment but fair, considering that the Tea Party’s main activities are 1.) opposing every issue supported by a black president, and 2.) hating immigrants of color.
Do you see the logical fallacies at work here?
Let's start with point 1. "I oppose President Obama's policy stances, ergo, I am a racist." No, I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way. (But then, we've heard this argument since before the presidential election. Somebody ought to write about that particular issue. Oh, wait: someone did.) Yes, I definitely oppose President Obama's policies; they represent an unprecedented-in-peacetime grab of power by the federal government. But that certainly does not mean I am racist, or that I would not support any black president. (I hear some people are trying to convince Herman Cain to run in 2012; having heard him talk about policy before, I could get behind his ideas.) I would have been just as opposed to these policies if they had been implemented by Hillary Clinton, for example. (But that would have made me a misogynist, wouldn't it, though of course all the people who so virulently hate Sarah Palin are never called that, except by conservatives, who of course have no standing to speak on anything.)
No, these policies include a quadrupling of our budget deficit (with similar deficit numbers over the next ten years) via countless stimulus packages that do not appear to have stemmed the tide of unemployment. Remember when the unemployment wouldn't go above 8% if the first stimulus package were passed? Neither do I. But with unemployment firmly entrenched above 9%, our government continues to spend as if there is no tomorrow. Since the federal government apparently hasn't the will to cut any government spending (except, of course, for defense), the only other way, in the minds of many, to raise federal revenue is to raise taxes. A lot. More on that momentarily.
The policies I oppose also include a healthcare plan that tells my employer exactly what has to be included in our health insurance plan, regardless of whether we want all of it or not. It keeps people who have been using health savings accounts for years from using them for certain items. It also does a bunch of other things that burden individuals and employers, including small employers in many cases; see here for more information.
Our president's policies also include, though it hasn't been passed yet, a cap-and-trade (referred to by many, including me, as "cap-and-tax") plan that would drive utility rates up quite a bit. Don't believe me? Maybe this will convince you:
And since we're talking about costs to the consumer, let's add taxes into this discussion. Now, we could debate the Laffer curve all day and try to determine where the midpoint is for balancing tax rates and revenue growth, but the fact is that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts (referred to by most as the "Bush tax cuts") spurred growth and job creation in what was becoming a economic slowdown. Let's see...we're in something a little greater than just a "slowdown" now; what do you think allowing these tax cuts to expire (in effect, raising taxes) will have on job creation? Hmmm...
(Yes, there's still time for Congress to attend to the issue of whether they want to raise everyone's taxes...a few people have spoken about where we currently stand, including one Sarah Palin.)
Oh, and before you get the impression that I'm just a selfish so-and-so who doesn't want to help anyone, let me say two things: 1) I worked, and continue to work, very hard to get myself out of the debt I've run up, following (for the most part) the fairly simple ideas put forth by Dave Ramsey; and 2) I've addressed in a previous post (which did not appear on the Austin Post) what I believe my responsibilities as a Christian are to others.
Then there's the incredible government intrusion into the car industry under the guise of "saving" GM and Chrysler. Word to the wise: they weren't too big to fail. If it had come to it, parts, or all, of the companies would have been sold to more profitable automakers, many of whom probably could have done a better job of running them.
And, of course, there is the federal government's stubborn refusal to do one job specifically given it in the Constitution: to protect our borders. Per Article IV, Section 4:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
But instead of protecting our borders against illegal immigration, the federal government has sued a state that tried to solve their own problem.
And this brings us to the other main assertion made about the Tea Party: that we "hat[e] immigrants of color". Personally, I don't hate anyone, and I don't think anyone has a problem with immigration--as long as it is legal. The author of this Austin Post piece, in saying that the Tea Party hates immigrants in toto, has made us into a bunch of white supremacists. Far from it. But there is a proper way to enter this country, just as there is a proper way to follow every law in this country. How would the author of these defamatory accusations like it if I and, say, 12 million of my best friends all decided not to pay our taxes for, oh, ten years or so, and then we all held rallies to demand that our tax liability be totally forgiven? No? Then why should others be allowed to break existing laws with impunity?
And since the person in question also wondered why "the Tea Party can’t formulate a convincing argument why immigration is harmful" (I will assume he meant to say illegal immigration), I'll answer. First of all, I'll refer this person to the article I wrote three months ago in which I pointed out the following:
Phoenix is the "number two kidnapping capital of the world" (Mexico City is #1).
Suspected human traffickers shot a deputy in Arizona. Just the shooting is bad enough, but human trafficking is reprehensible.
What wasn't in that article was that I know someone whose family was affected by a kidnapping relating to a Mexican cartel. Thankfully, the kidnappers in that case were totally inept, and so the person affected is fine now, albeit a bit shaken up, I would imagine.
I'm not gonna say any of the stuff that has been said for years such as "they're taking our jobs!!!!11!" because I'm all for people working. But there is a correct way to do it.
In closing, I welcome discussion about these topics. To borrow a phrase from the person who wrote the previous Austin Post article, get to know some tea partiers; they're great folks.
Or keep calling us names. But just realize that it says a whole lot more about you than it does about us.
It certainly seems, at times, as if there are a lot of people who have a desperate need to show that Sarah Palin is wrong about something, regardless of whether she is actually wrong about whatever topic these people choose to mention, or not.
Today's case in point is PolitiFact, which, generally, appears to be fair in its analyses, at least as far as I have seen in the past. What they were thinking when they classified a recent statement by Governor Palin as "pants on fire" (that means they're calling it a lie, for those of you who never had a childhood), I don't know. That statement appears during her appearance on Fox News Sunday four days ago:
To those wondering: yes, this is the "cojones" interview. It is also the interview in which Governor Palin addressed the image presented of her by a lot of media outlets, and the unfavorability that she has among many:
As for the unfavorable, you know, I don't blame people for not really knowing what it is, in some instances -- what I stand for or what my record is because if I believed everything that I read or heard in the media, I wouldn't like me either.
But let's get back to the statement that she made while discussing the impending expiration of the 2001/2003 Bush tax cuts on January 1, 2011. The statement that raised PolitiFact's dander was the following:
But Democrats are poised now to cause this largest tax increase in U.S. history. It's a tax increase of $3.8 trillion over the next 10 years, and it will have an effect on every single American who pays an income tax.
I won't devote a lot of space to PolitiFact's argument; you can see it for yourself here and make the call. But I will call attention to the following statement:
So Palin is confusing the issue here by using numbers that assume all the tax cuts are going away. That is not the Democratic plan nor is it President Obama's plan.
Well, that sounds better, doesn't it? So what's the problem? Sarah Palin explains exactly what the problem is in her response to the PolitiFact post:
Plan? What plan? There is no plan. All we have is smoke and mirrors based on an old Obama campaign pledge that if elected, he would exempt families making less than $250,000 a year from “any form of tax increases.” But this pledge was already watered before he was even elected. First vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden lowered it to $150,000. Then campaign surrogate Gov. Bill Richardson lowered it even further to $120,000.
A few months after the inauguration, even that last promise disappeared in a puff of smoke. When asked to reaffirm the White House’s commitment to the campaign promise of no tax increases for families earning less than $250,000, Obama’s spin doctor David Axelrod declared the President had “no interest in drawing lines in the sand.”
The truth is that as of today, Democrats haven’t taken any action to extend any part of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for any income group – and in this case doing nothing equals hitting American taxpayers with a massive $3.8 trillion tax increase.
What we do know for certain is that the White House is more than willing to raise taxes on families with incomes of less than $250,000. Democrat Senator Max Baucus admitted as much during the debate about Obamacare when he stated that “One other point that I think it’s very important to make is that it is true that in certain cases, the taxes will go up for some Americans who might be making less than $200,000.”
Who's right? At this point, until something hits the House floor addressing the tax cuts, Governor Palin is. But she leaves the door open for further discussion:
[...] it would be helpful if the White House and the Democratic Congressional leadership finally mustered the courage to table their plans to let the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire. Mr. President, publish your proposals, and we’ll duke it out. You can argue in favor of a multi-trillion dollar tax hike in an age of economic uncertainty and mass unemployment, and we’ll argue for fiscal sanity combined with serious spending cuts. I for one look forward to such a debate.
Somehow I doubt such a debate will take place, given the seeming inclination of so many, including people at PolitiFact, to try to spread misinformation. In the meantime, however, you could see all of Sarah Palin's response to PolitiFact here.
